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Financial literacy plays a crucial role in individuals' decision-making processes. The paper aims to thoroughly identify the financial literacy needs and challenges of adults with low financial literacy living in rural areas. The paper presents the results of a focus group study conducted among a target group (35 people) and interviews with financial experts (14 people) in the first quarter of 2023. The study allows us to identify common areas of financial knowledge crucial for adults with low financial literacy living in rural areas. The study was conducted in seven European countries as part of the Erasmus+ project "Learning by Experiencing Escape Rooms: Financial Literacy for Adults (FLER)". Key findings from the study revealed that participants exhibited low awareness of financial fraud and expressed a need to protect personal information when using digital platforms. There was a clear demand for improved knowledge in certain areas, such as budgeting, emergency funds, balancing risk and reward, and planning for retirement or long-term savings. Participants consistently viewed gamification as a valuable tool for enhancing their understanding of financial topics. The contribution of our study is that we narrow the research gap on the needs and challenges related to financial literacy among rural residents. The results will help pinpoint specific areas of financial knowledge and competencies that are particularly important for adults with low financial literacy. Moreover, these insights are crucial for developing educational content integrated into a virtual escape room to improve financial literacy through engaging, scenario-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Securitization of the agricultural commodity market has accelerated since the beginning of the 21st century, particularly in the times of financial market uncertainty and crisis. Sugar belongs to the group of important agricultural commodities. The global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a substantial increase in the stock market volatility. Moreover, the novel coronavirus hit both the sugar market's supply and demand side, resulting in sugar stock changes. The paper aims to assess potential structural changes in the relationship between sugar prices and the financial market uncertainty in a crisis time. In more detail, using sequential Bai–Perron tests for structural breaks, we check whether the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have induced structural breaks in that relationship. Sugar prices are represented by the S&P GSCI Sugar Index, while the S&P 500 option-implied volatility index (VIX) is used to show stock market uncertainty. To investigate the changes in the relationship between sugar prices and stock market uncertainty, a regression model with a sequential Bai–Perron test for structural breaks is applied for the daily data from 2000–2020. We reveal the existence of two structural breaks in the analysed relationship. The first breakpoint was linked to the global financial crisis outbreak, and the second occurred in December 2011. Surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has not induced the statistically significant structural change. Based on the regression model with Bai–Perron structural changes, we show that from 2000 until the beginning of the global financial crisis, the relationship between the sugar prices and the financial market uncertainty was insignificant. The global financial crisis led to a structural change in the relationship. Since August 2008, we observe a significant and negative relationship between the S&P GSCI Sugar Index and the S&P 500 option-implied volatility index (VIX). Sensitivity analysis conducted for the different financial market uncertainty measures, i.e., the S&P 500 Realized Volatility Index confirms our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]